Tea Scale Recommendations

After reading the grams/teaspoon thread and with the gyokuro OTTI upcoming, I think it is about time that I consider investing in a tea scale. I've always gone by the teaspoon is ~2 grams rule, but I'd hate to be missing a tea's full potential or wasting excess leaf due to inaccuracies. Any shared recommendations/experiences would be much appreciated!

Inexpensive but very useful digital scales are easy to find online. Look for one with 0.1g accuracy, and size and weight capacity to hold your favorite tea-weighing vessel (Cha he or a small bowl). Jewelry scales are usually just right. IME specific brand is less important than tare capacity & fit in your tea drawer/cabinet/shelf. I haven't paid over $12.

Stentor wrote:Also some detect and display changes in weight quicker than others. Some react in real time, some take half a second or so. You'll want the real time one.

This is something very few people consider when buying and recommending cheap digital scales. After trying a fairly large selection of eBay specials, I can't emphasize enough how much of a difference it makes to use a scale that responds and updates quickly, giving an accurate and certain final reading with no lag.

The My Weigh Triton T2 costs just over $15 and is by far the nicest inexpensive digital pocket scale I've ever used.

Stentor wrote:Also some detect and display changes in weight quicker than others. Some react in real time, some take half a second or so. You'll want the real time one.

This is something very few people consider when buying and recommending cheap digital scales. After trying a fairly large selection of eBay specials, I can't emphasize enough how much of a difference it makes to use a scale that responds and updates quickly, giving an accurate and certain final reading with no lag.

The My Weigh Triton T2 costs just over $15 and is by far the nicest inexpensive digital pocket scale I've ever used.

I never considered this factor. Weigh ... errr way back when when I finally saw a digital scale, I just bought it w/o hesitation since I had wanted one for tea for quite some time (plus I like measure gadgets ). I guess I lucked out as it is still perfect and must be real time since I never had any lag. But now, they are everywhere and uber cheap.

But then again, I never noticed "real time" being in specs for scales. I look periodically since the one I have is quite old now and is used everyday and often hard use (OTTI/NOTTI).

But yeah, lag times would really suck with a scale ... same with digital thermometers, although they all seem to have some lag ... but some are realllly slow.

I thought I'd add that prior to getting these devises my temperature guesstimates were 20 degrees lower than actual (so I was steeping cooler) and I've experienced that no two teas weight the same per teaspoon. I now consider these a basic investment, especially if posting reviews and or purchasing higher priced teas.